13 comments:

Are there segregated commercial laws that limit the practicality of direct sponsorship in today's market, or do they only regulate advertising products directly related to the series.If I recall correctly the Dumont Network (of Honeymooners fame) was the first to use multiple advertisers, to compensate for a lack of popularity. Multi-sponsor advertising (called magazine style) was was also used to avoid censorship by the advertisers. By Frank Stanton's CBS news team, I believe.

To add to mikesnj's point: if the top advertisers actually grew up watching Ren and Stimpy and other quality cartoons from the 90s, i would not count against those same advertisers wanting cartoons "like" Ren and Stimpy back on television.

I say "like" because I hope a hungry animator, if not myself, creates another iconic cartoon. something new for the next generation. you know what I mean, Vern?

I've always felt that commercials are one of the few places an animator can actually have fun doing something that's up to their personal standards instead of the boring standards of most TV work - and get paid for it.

Kick some ass, John. Here's hoping that magazine's hitting the desk of a few brand managers who remember how bad they wanted to buy Log back in the 90s.

Yikes. Personally, this is my idea of hell. I love your cartoons and would love to see more of them of course but creating what amounts to a bunch of little salesmen wouldn't be something I'd wish for you, Mr.K.

I think the programming business model is undergoing a huge change at the moment and things are going to be quite different in ten years time but I hope for viewer-bought content such as the DVD model, that is sold on entertainment value, rather than the advertiser paid for content, which is sold on the ability to hawk shit to kids.

The FCC certainly created a double standard with the Children's Television Act, the ruling that stopped characters in the show turing to the camera and saying, "Hey, kids! Buy my cereal." But allows producers to create toy-based cartoons ie: "Pokemon" and its ilk.

BTW: according to my source, "The Honeymooners" had it's original run on CBS. But the point is taken. Dumont didn't have the big stars, so they had to work harder.

The reason magazine spot schedules flourished after about 1960: more ad revenue for the networks, as more people bought TV's and watched longer, more advertisers became convinced TV was the way to go, so networks made room for them.

Today, as the old networks see their ratings drop and ad revenue drop as well, single-sponsor or "leased programming" is on the rise again. Ever wonder how Donald Trump keeps getting on NBC? There you go.

I agree with stevef - I think the trend with American television is going back to the single sponsor or a handful of sponsors approach, and I think it's going back to the commercials mixed in with the show approach with product placement and sketches disguised as commercials.

For example: During the contest portion of American Idol, the show plays music videos featuring the remaining contestants that are actually commercials for Ford.